April | 2014 | ZETEO

Using your Podium for the Right Reasons: Jimmy Carter on Rape at Universities

April 19, 2014 by William Eaton

On my last trip down south I was gifted Jimmy Carter’s latest book, A Call To Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power. I must admit I began reading with hesitation and scrutiny, confident that this anti-choice, Southern Baptist, ex-President could not possibly be critiquing the role of religion in the oppression of and overall inequality of women. Sure enough! That and so much more. I am still only moments into the book, and certainly going in with low expectations can often […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: Jimmy Carter, New York Times, rape, women, women's rights

Creativity brought on by Adversity

April 18, 2014 by Jennifer Dean

This week on my “spring break” I am reading Oliver Sacks’ An Anthropologist on Mars. In the introduction he refers to the inevitable creative ways in which people who cope with disease or development disorders learn to not only exist in the world but thrive. Thus while one may be horrified by the ravages of developmental disorder or disease, one may sometimes see them as creative too – for if they destroy particular paths, particular ways of doing things, they may […]

Categories: Jennifer Dean, ZiR • Tags: film

The Hunger to Be Somewhere Else – part III of III

April 17, 2014 by William Eaton

(This is the third of three reviews of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America. In Part I (April 03, 2014) – Steinbeck writes about travel and nature. In Part II (April 10) Steinbeck uses humor to look into the American character and to create a relationship with his readers.) “I have to go alone, and unknown,” said John Steinbeck of the 10,000 mile road trip through 34 states he took in 1960. “What I’ll get I need badly—a reknowledge […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR • Tags: literature, travel

Satisfying Bruises

April 15, 2014 by William Eaton

I read “Mercury,” my first book by rebel poet Ariana Reines, while on a recent trip to New York City. Reines is famous for being fearless and even foul mouthed. Her poetry is haunting and unsettling, but in a beautiful, straightforward way. Leafless tree beauty, you could call it. One thing her poetry is not is romantic. So perhaps it wasn’t the ideal travel companion for a trip taken to celebrate a 5-year wedding anniversary. However, the urbanity of “Mercury” […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR

A name that tells a story

April 14, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

There’s a lesson to be learned in Ernesto Quiñonez’s Bodega Dreams (New York: A Vintage Contemporaries Original, 2000). Namely, that nicknames, other than forming an annoying part of growing up, are also a testimony of a person’s life and actions. In the first pages of the book, one of the main characters classifies real names as trivial and nicknames as achievements: To have a name other than the one your parents had given you meant you had status in school, had […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: adolescence, childhood

Museum, Inc.

April 13, 2014 by William Eaton

Responding to my interest in the financial roles played by fine art (e.g. how it is used to launder money and how museum shows are used to maintain or increase the value of art collections), an art historian friend recently lent me Paul Werner’s Museum, Inc.: Inside the Global Art World (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2005). Werner shoots from the hip, at times with dazzling, witty results, and at times leaving a reader (or this reader) scratching his head and wishing Werner […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: art, art museums, democracy, finance

“Your actions are making me uncomfortable!” And other ways to respond to street harassment

April 12, 2014 by William Eaton

Just on the heels of last week’s post regarding Leah Green’s reverse street harassment video, comes Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s write up in the New York Time’s Art section this week, An Artist Demands Civility on the Street With Grit and Buckets of Paste. The artist’s most recent project is just one more creative attempt to bring attention to the overwhelmingly commonplace problem of street harassment. Her posters, wheat pasted on walls around the country, feature faces of young women accompanied by […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR

Surveys and Statistics

April 11, 2014 by Jennifer Dean

There was a brief post on the Women and Hollywood blog about the Cannes Workshop focusing on women filmmakers which initially seems positive in light of years past where women were completely absent from the festival (a petition was circulated in protest for the 2012 competition where no women directors were present). However I couldn’t help but think of Lexi Alexander’s conversation at the Athena Film Festival where she discussed her blog post about women directors in Hollywood and lamented […]

Categories: Jennifer Dean, ZiR • Tags: film, gender

A taciturn candidate for Mt. Rushmore – Part II of III

April 10, 2014 by William Eaton

(This is the second of three reviews of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America. In Part I (April 03, 2014) – Steinbeck writes about travel and nature. Part III (April 17), “The Hunger to be Somewhere Else,” is about Steinbeck’s observations on the restlessness of the American character.) Steinbeck’s use of hyperbole, self-deprecation, ridicule and satire makes us laugh. His humor yields understanding of our national character. About the Yankee preference for getting to the point, no more and no less, he writes of […]